Reliance, Essar looking to buy BP's retail outlets in East Africa: report

Indian energy majors Reliance Industries Ltd and Essar Oil Ltd are among several companies in the race to acquire the East African fuel marketing outlets of crisis-hit British energy giant BP.

BP is reported to be offloading its retail outlets in Botswana, Tanzania, Namibia, Malawi and possibly also in Zambia, worth around $500 million, reports said.

Neither Reliance Industries, nor Essar Oil offered to comment on the reports.

BP is selling assets world over to raise around $30 billion to cover the cost of the costly Gulf of Mexico oil leak - the worst oil spill in US history.

Other likely buyers include a South African company and Libya's National Oil Corp, reports said.
    
The acquisition may suit Reliance, which is looking at supplying gas oil, gasoline and jet fuel from its twin refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat.
    
Essar Oil has a 50 per cent stake in the 4 million tonne Kenya Petroleum Refinery in Mombasa, which it acquired last year.

BP is the largest aviation fuel supplier in Tanzania with about 92 per cent market share.
    
BP along with Press Corp owns 46 service stations operated by the joint venture BP Malawi and is the only supplier of aviation fuels at the country's two international airports at Lilongwe and Blantyre.
    
BP has 29 fuel stations, five depots besides aviation service in Namibia.
    
In Zambia, BP owns 53 out of the 196 retail outlets and a large number of fuel storage and handling depots as also aviation fuel service stations at Lusaka International Airport and at the Ndola, Livingstone and Mfuwe airfields.

The acquisition would give a ready and growing market for auto and aviation fuel and offer the buyer scope for expansion into neighbouring markets within the African region.